Why 'Your Why' Will Help you Win
“When you know your why, you’ll know your way.” ~Michael Hyatt
We’ve all experienced our organization to have core values. Maybe some of us can remember the era of these being posted on walls or company or team swag. Most of us have probably developed them because we know we need them to hold our culture together. Beyond your mission and vision, these have the power to be much more commanding, however, then just a talent branding or engagement driver. Values can be key drivers and definers of high performance behaviors that will unlock the doors to what you want to see on your road to success, which will not always be linear.
Let’s drill down into why your values - “your behavioral why’s” - are so important and why they can play a critical role operationally to help you win. Quite simply, being very clear about your why, will help you and your team understand what matters and what doesn’t. This can translate into how you communicate with each other, how you operate and what happens in the board room and beyond.
Clarify What’s Important: look at this from all angles especially the behaviors you’d like to see. If you are winning, what do you want to see exhibited and happen?
Distinguish What Isn’t Important: what are your no’s and what isn’t at all necessary to win? These will help you articulate what you want to stay away from.
Make Them Easily Fluent: having a manifesto may be inspiring, but make sure these can be adopted, affirmed and rather easily assimilated into everyday language, where they will be most impactful.
Build Your Values Into Your System: whether they are hiring, talent management, or company all hands communications programs, ensure these are built into the whole system to that they show up in many different places, to remind employees and the whole team “this is how we behave” and ‘this is what matters.” Don’t force it just, make it fluent.
Have Fun with It and Repeat, Repeat, Repeat: consider weaving these into a recognition and rewards program or company updates, so that you can have champions and tangible examples to share with employees on how these have been your compass, and how they have helped you achieve goals and win.